Springs or coils, such as are used to construct a mattress and other portions of furniture, are often coupled into a sheet of springs, i.e., a spring unit. A method of packaging, shipping, and storing a spring unit includes compressing the spring unit and wrapping the compressed spring unit around a central axis with a length of flexible wrapping material. Usually, several spring units will be compressed and wrapped with the same length of flexible wrapping material into the same spring roll pack. For example, the spring units within a spring roll pack are usually compressed and rolled into the spring roll pack one at a time. A spring roll pack is secured so that it does not unroll while being shipped and stored. For example, the flexible wrapping material is typically secured around the outside of the spring roll pack with tape or another type of temporary adhesive.
Once a spring roll pack has reached its destination, various methods might be used to unroll the spring roll pack. For example, the spring roll pack might be laid on the ground, after which the tape or other temporary adhesive is removed. After the tape or other temporary adhesive is removed, an end of the flexible wrapping material might simply be pulled to initiate an unrolling of the spring roll pack along the ground. Essentially, the roll-packed springs decompress and the spring roll pack unrolls itself in a relatively uncontrolled fashion. While this method effectively dispenses roll-packed spring units, it has various disadvantages. For example, because the spring roll pack is not confined, the relatively sudden decompression and unrolling of the roll-packed spring units present safety hazards. Moreover, the sudden decompression and unrolling often cause spring units, or individual springs, to collide with each other, thereby damaging and/or tangling the springs. Further, once a spring roll pack is opened, all spring units within the spring roll pack must be dispensed and stored loosely (e.g., decompressed and flat) until required in production, thereby inefficiently using storage space.
Another method of unrolling a spring roll pack includes placing the spring roll pack in an enclosed dispensing chamber. The flexible wrapping material is attached to a wind-up system, which pulls and accumulates the flexible wrapping material, thereby having an effect of unrolling the pack and causing spring units to exit from the spring roll pack. While this method addresses some of the safety concerns that are present with an unconfined unrolling approach, spring units are still decompressed rapidly, thereby causing damage to and/or tangling of the springs. As such, to prevent further damage and tangling to the springs and spring units, all spring units are generally unwound to be stored in a loose (i.e., unwrapped) state. All units are also generally unwound as a partially open roll pack is very hard to manipulate. As such, this approach does not resolve issues arising from having to unroll an entire spring roll pack at once and loosely store spring units.